


a teenage vow in a parking lot (till tonight do us part)

by honeydripping



Series: how you get the girl [3]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Miscommunication, Rule 63, Unsafe Sex, Women in the NHL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 02:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeydripping/pseuds/honeydripping
Summary: “Who told you that?” Quinn asks.“Does it matter?” Brady asks, looking up at her. “Point is, you didn’t.”He’s right, is the thing. They used to tell each other everything, every thought, every dream, every secret.Until they didn’t.





	a teenage vow in a parking lot (till tonight do us part)

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU FOUND THIS THROUGH GOOGLE, KNOW ANYONE MENTIONED IN THIS FIC, OR ARE MENTIONED IN THIS FIC: dear god please turn back now. this is, obviously, a work of fiction, but some of the events mentioned within are inspired by real life.
> 
> Title is from Hum Hallelujah by Fall Out Boy.
> 
> Warning for teenagers being semi-stupid about birth control. Also, Brady and Quinn talk about having sex while underage, but it's all off-screen.
> 
> This is the third part of my girlverse. It _can_ be read without having read the Jack/Noah or Johnny/Chucky fics, but there are spoilers for the Johnny/Chucky fic in this one, as it comes after it chronologically. So, like, chase your bliss with regards to that.

 

Brady calls her on a Wednesday afternoon. Her finger hovers over “decline” for three, four, five rings before she swears under her breath and answers.

“Yeah,” she says on an exhale.

“Quinny!” Brady’s voice is bright on the other end.

“Facetime?” she asks. Her hair’s a mess and she hasn’t showered in two days, but Brady’s seen her in every state imaginable. She doesn’t care, and he sure as _hell_ doesn’t care.

“I’m driving,” he offers as an answer.

“Not looking to break the law?”

“Not today,” he says and she _knows_ he’s smiling.

“You called?” she asks, trying not to be short with him. It’s not his fault that they’re… like this. Not entirely.

“Yeah. Wanted to know what you’re up to.”

Quinn looks around her room, at the piles of clothing that need to be put away, the piles that definitely need to be washed, the posters that are starting to curl at the corners, the weights abandoned in the corner.

“Uh, you know. The usual,” she says.

“Fortnite and training?”

Quinn smiles despite herself. She hasn’t even been home from Worlds more than a week yet.

“You know me,” she says and hates how wistful she sounds.

“Yeah,” he sighs.

“Brady—” she says at the same time that he says “Quinn—”

They both pause for a long, drawn out, awkward moment. It didn’t used to be like this. It didn’t used to be a struggle. Talking to Brady used to be easy as breathing for her. It was instinctual, something she could slip into without even thinking.

They lost that, somewhere along the way.

It was stilted now.

(She’d seen him almost two months ago, when he’d come to Vancouver. He’d called her the day before, and he’d been nervous, she could tell.

“Do you want to hang out?” he’d asked. “If you want to—or like, if you’re not busy. I mean, I know you’re like, in recovery, and focused on being ready for your, like, debut. And stuff. But like, I’m in town tomorrow. Obviously. And I’d love to see you. If like, you wanted. So just. Let me know?”

He’d said it all at once, this fast, anxious jumble of words tumbling out of his mouth. It was so unlike Brady that she’d said, “Okay.” without even thinking over what she was agreeing to.

He’d come to the hotel she was staying at, hands shoved deep in his pockets when he met her in the lobby.

His smile was tentative when he saw her, nervous energy radiating off of him.

She’d hugged him and he’d melted into it, his weight sagging into her.

“Missed you,” he confessed, breath hot over her neck where he’d tucked his face in tight. If she focused, she could feel his lips moving on her skin when he spoke.

She tried not to focus.

“Me too,” she admitted, hands clinched in the fabric of his sweatshirt.

They’d gone down to the harbor and she’d showed him around at his behest.

“I haven’t even been here that long,” she’d said, but smiled and dragged him into a coffee shop she’d found.

“Longer than me,” he said. “Wanna see your new home.”

“If they keep me up.”

“They’ll keep you up,” he said, “And if they don’t, they’re morons.”

Her heart pounded in her chest at that. Brady was always so sure of her, of her abilities. It made her feel unstoppable.

Brady posted a picture of her, later. It wasn’t anything… special. It didn’t _mean_ anything.

But Josh had texted her nonetheless.

 **norris 🏆**  
_are mom and dad working things out?_

 **quinn**  
_fuck off_

 **norris 🏆**  
_someone’s aggro_ 👀

He leaves her alone after that, knowing better than to poke at her when she’s feeling like this. They’d practically lived together in Michigan, both during the NTDP and in college. He knew her better than most. Better than Brady, now, probably.)

“Are you busy?” Brady asks after another long moment.

Quinn looks around her room again and shrugs. “Not really.”

Brady takes a deep breath, before exhaling. “Wanna come to the beach?”

“Which beach?” Quinn finds herself asking before she can even think this through. _Which beach_ shouldn’t matter. The right question should be _when_ and _with who_?

“The Cape, I should say. Matthew’s getting the house for a couple weeks so he can hang with his girlfriend—”

“Matthew has a _girlfriend_?”

“I _know_ ,” Brady says, positively bursting with glee, and Quinn can imagine all the things he wants to say in that moment. She feels sixteen again, lying on her stomach on Brady’s bed, listening to him gossiping. Her heart aches.

“Anyway, mom and dad won’t let him have it unless I go and I don’t really wanna third wheel it—”

“So you’re inviting me so you won’t have to be alone with your brother and his girlfriend.”

“Exactly,” he says. “But also, because like, we don’t really…” he trails off.

 _We don’t really talk anymore_.

“Yeah,” Quinn sighs.

“Think about it?”

“Okay.”

—

 **quinn**  
_i’m in  
just tell me when_

 **tkachuckle** 🤡  
👌🏻🤙🏻

—

Brady’s shirt is questionably buttoned when he picks her up at Logan on a Monday afternoon.

It’s hot already. She knew that because she’d checked the weather obsessively for _days_ before she’d left.

And like, Quinn was born in Florida. She might’ve split her time growing up between Orlando and Toronto and Ann Arbor, but like, she _knew_ heat. She was ready for it.

She wasn’t ready for this. For Brady with his shorts exposing half of his thighs or for his shirt to be unbuttoned down to his sternum, gaping open due to the weight of his sunglasses pulling on the fabric.

“What’s the _look_ ,” she asks, pinching his side when he pulls her in for a hug. She’s not short, but Brady is _tall_ and always has been, and she fits right up under his chin the same as always.

“Summer on the Cape, baby,” he explains. Her stomach flips.

“Are those Birks?”

He grins.

“Disgusting. _Disgusting_. Who _are_ you?”

“I’m a man now,” he explains, grabbing her bag off the carousel when she points to it.

“And being a man mandates that you wear Birks?”

“Duh.

His sunglasses are tangled in his curls and his smile is impossibly wide and Quinn’s heart _hurts_.

—

Brady’s rental is an obnoxiously red convertible.

“Got it to fuck with Matthew.”

“Of course,” Quinn says, before sliding her sunglasses on and propping her feet up on the dash.

“So, listen,” Brady says as he pulls out of the airport parking lot, “Matthew and his girl are like _reuniting_ —”

“Ew,” Quinn says, wrinkling her nose.

“I _know_. I heard them earlier, or well, I heard _her_ , anyway. I figured we’d give them some time alone.”

“Sounds good,” Quinn says, looking over at Brady. His lip is caught between his teeth and his fingers are clenched around the steering wheel.

“Gonna show me around your city?”

He exhales, laughing for a moment.

“Yeah, okay, Quinny. I can do that.”

—

They find a parking lot near Fenway, tucked away in an alley. Quinn’s not so sure about it, but Brady seems pretty confident, so she lets it go.

He leads her down the street, talking the whole way about the Terriers and pointing out places he used to go when he lived in Boston.

“How far is this from where you lived?”

“From the dorms?” he asks, brows knitting together. He swings around on the sidewalk looking back towards where they came. “Walk that way for about six minutes, hang a left on Commonwealth and walk for another ten minutes or so. That’s about where I lived.”

She can see it. Brady walking down these streets with his friends after a game or during the week, heading out to bars and restaurants. This was his home for a year. A year she’d largely missed out on.

“This is us,” he says after leading her down another street. He places a hand on her lower back and ushering her through a parking lot. There’s an old, 1950s city bus parked right outside with a graffiti wall behind it.

“Japanese okay?” he asks. Quinn nods, distracted by everything she’s seeing.

Inside, it looks part tiki bar, part mid-century music studio. Brady asks for a table for two and they’re led out to a patio.

Quinn raises an eyebrow at him once they’ve sat down. “This your scene?”

He laughs a little. “I’ve never been here when the sun’s out. They have really good drinks.”

“God, of _course_.”

“Don’t judge,” he says, but he’s smiling.

They eat, like, a _lot_. It’s small plates, which Quinn assumes means she’ll be leaving here at least a little hungry.

But she’s wrong.

She feels like Violet Beauregarde, like she needs to be rolled out of the restaurant and down the street.

“Ugh, I could sleep for _hours_.” It’s cooler outside, now, thanks to a breeze rolling through the city.

“Yeah?” Brady asks and he’s frowning a little.

“What?” Quinn asks, looking up at him.

“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Yeah, we could head back now.”

He starts off down the sidewalk. Quinn has to jog a little to catch up with him.

“Wait, wait,” she says, wrapping a hand around his elbow. “Talk to me.”

Brady stops and turns towards Quinn, suddenly all up in her space. She stumbles back a step, like she’s been burned.

“It’s nothing…”

“It’s not. What did you have in mind?”

Brady bites his lip, looking down at the sidewalk, face scrunching up. “You know me too well.”

“Better than you know yourself,” she says, feeling impatient. “Now spit it out.”

“Just... “ he sighs. “I got Sox tickets?”

“You… what?”

“I… got Sox tickets.”

“You’re kidding,” Quinn says.

“I’m not.” Brady’s cheeks are pink.

“Did you get seats on the Green Monster?” Quinn teases.

Brady’s cheeks flush harder.

“Oh my _god_. You didn’t…”

“We don’t have to sit there—”

“Oh, no, we’re sitting there. We’re sitting there and you’re getting me the biggest snacks we can find.”

“You’re gonna make me buy you some ugly, obnoxious hat, aren’t you?”

Quinn shakes her head.

“Foam finger, all the way.”

Brady groans. “Of course.”

—

It’s a perfect evening. They watch the Red Sox, of course, but they also spend hours just… talking. Brady buys Quinn a foam finger, like he promised, and he tolerates her poking him with it, only slapping it away twice.

By the time the game is over and the sun’s long set, they head off to the house.

Quinn falls asleep, watching the city lights pass by quickly, wind blowing through the car, Brady singing poorly along to whatever’s on the radio.

When she wakes up, it’s to Brady’s hand on her shoulder.

“We’re here,” he whispers, face impossibly soft. Quinn has to shut her eyes at the sight.

“Carry me?” she asks, and Brady laughs, this soft, fond thing that makes her heart clench in her chest.

“Only if you ask really nicely.” He’s smiling when she looks at him. His smile that means _trouble_. It’s the same one he’d flashed at her when they’d snuck out after curfew in Ann Arbor. The one he’d had on his face when they’d stolen and split a bottle of liquor back at the hotel in Buffalo. The one he’d had the night they—

Quinn gets out of the car.

Brady’s quiet as he walks her through the foyer and up the stairs.

“That’s my parent’s room,” he says, pointing to the right. There’s a door at the end of the catwalk, shut tight with no lights coming from underneath. “And that’s Matthew’s,” he says, pointing towards the first door on the left when they cross the landing. There’s a faint light coming from under the door. “Mine,” he points to a door down the hall, across from Matthew’s. “And, this is yours. It’s Taryn’s. I hope that’s okay?”

He opens the door at the very end of the hall. It’s dark inside, save for the light coming in through the windows. He’s quiet as he sets down her bag and flips on the lamp next to the bed. It’s cute, Quinn thinks. It was obviously decorated by Chantal years ago, and still feels like a little girl’s room in a lot of ways. But the bed is big and the sheets are clean and she’s only here for two weeks.

“It’s perfect,” she tells Brady and he smiles at her again. She looks away.

“Bathroom is between ours. Matthew has his own, the dick.”

“Older sibling privilege,” Quinn says, just to be a jerk.

“Yeah, whatever,” Brady says, but he’s smiling. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Quinn looks at the floor. “Me too.”

—

Once, when they were sixteen, Brady hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d dragged himself downstairs and poked his head through Quinn’s door.

“Quinny?” he’d asked.

“What?” she’d asked, barely looking up from her phone. Josh was bugging her about their chem homework. She was considering whether or not she wanted to let him copy.

“I can’t sleep.”

“And that’s my problem how?” She looked up at him, which had been her first mistake. He had a hoodie on, with his hood pulled over his head. He looked stupid.

And soft.

And exhausted.

The circles under his eyes were dark and she knew that if he didn’t get any sleep, he’d be worthless tomorrow during the game.

Quinn had sighed, exhaling hard, before patting the bed next to her.

Brady had practically leapt from the door to her bed, burrowing quickly under the blankets and curling up next to her, as close as he could, without actually touching her.

“Your dad’s going to kill you if he finds you down here,” she’d said, before bringing her hand up to his head. She rubbed gently at his scalp, soft little circles, that she knew would have him purring if he could. She did this on the road, sometimes, during bus rides and on planes. Brady’s anxiety tended to manifest in having too much energy. This helped. It was the least she could do.

“So set an alarm.”

“Earlier than the one I already have?” she sounded annoyed, which was good because she _was_ incredibly annoyed.

Brady hummed, pressing up against Quinn’s hand. “You’re the best, Quinny.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she’d said, thumbing her phone open to set another, even earlier alarm to wake them up before Keith. “This isn’t going to become a habit.”

Brady hummed again, eyes shut tight, but a smirk set on his stupid face.

“I mean it, Brady. You can’t just climb into my bed every time you can’t sleep.”

Brady’s eyes had opened at that. The way he looked at her in that moment made her insides squirm. He’d never looked at her like that before, and she couldn’t parse out what it was, only that it made her feel… things.

“No promises, Quinny.”

He’d fallen asleep a short while later and Quinn had watched him for longer than she cared to admit.

Her alarm had gone off at 5:30 the next morning. It was dark in her room, and she’d been so, so warm. Her body was weighed down with sleep and it took her a moment to realize that it was because Brady was wrapped around her. His arm had been heavy where it was draped over her waist and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

She hadn’t been able to place it back then, but looking back, she’d been so turned on that morning, body lit up like a live wire.

Brady had woken up a moment or two later, pulling his arm away and rolling over quickly.

His posture had been stiff on the other side of the mattress when Quinn rolled over to say, “Morning, asshole. Better not make me wake up this early again”

He’d laughed, more of an exhale than anything else, before getting up and shuffling out of her room, cloaked in darkness.

When she’d fallen back asleep, it’d been with her body pressed into the warmth he’d left behind.

—

Johnny Gaudreau is in the Tkachuk kitchen the next morning.

Johnny Gaudreau is making smoothies in a t-shirt Quinn is sure belongs to Matthew, and nothing else.

Johnny Gaudreau offers Quinn a smoothie.

 _Johnny fucking Gaudreau_.

“Brady didn’t tell you.”

Quinn shakes her head, taking a long sip of the smoothie. There’s too much banana.

“Figures,” Johnny says, before hopping onto the barstool beside Quinn.

“That explains why Matthew was at Worlds without _being_ at Worlds,” Quinn says. She’d seen him around. How could she not? She and Johnny were on the same team for weeks, training and playing together half a world away. At the time, she’d thought that maybe Matthew had just wanted to be a spectator for once, or to see his friends. She hadn’t thought to _ask_.

Johnny nods. “He thought playing would be a distraction from negotiations but…”

Quinn nods. But, he’d still wanted to see his girlfriend. Soft.

“Kinda cute,” Quinn says, smirking. “Gonna have to tease him about that for sure.”

“Please do,” Johnny says, “he gets so squirmy when he gets called out.”

They drink in silence for a few minutes, content to just sit together.

“So, you and Brady…” Johnny says, eyebrow raised.

“Oh,” Quinn says, color rising on her cheeks, “no. No, uh. No.”

“No?” Johnny asks, smile set on her face. Quinn has gotten to know her pretty well this summer and the summer before that. Johnny’s teasing her.

“No,” Quinn insists.

“Never?”

“ _Never_.”

Johnny hums like she doesn’t believe Quinn.

It’s mostly true. Mostly.

—

The Tkachuks have a pool in their backyard, and because Brady isn’t much of a planner, they spend Quinn’s first day on the Cape crowded around it.

When she pulled her swimsuit on that morning, she’d taken a picture and sent it to Josh.

 **quinn**  
_be honest: is this too much?_

She didn’t think it was. Jack had been with her when she’d picked it out and Jack had told her it was fine. She’d even bought the same swimsuit for herself in a neon pink color, because of course she had. Jack wasn’t Jack unless she was drawing attention to herself.

The top wasn’t anything special, just a scoop neck top. It looked like a sports bra, honestly, and Brady had seen her in plenty of those.

But the bottoms were more revealing than anything he’d ever seen her in before. They were fashionably high cut, showing off her long, toned legs, and the glutes she’d worked so hard for.

When she’d bought it, she’d felt good. Grown. Sexy, even.

Now her stomach fluttered at the thought of Brady seeing her in it.

 **norris 🏆**  
_not if ur tryna smash_

And then

👀 _i see u sens red_

 **quinn**  
_was going for a baywatch vibe  
not tryin to smash_

 **norris 🏆**  
_lol ok quinn_ 🙄  
_you don’t have to lie  
more like baewatch am i right?_

Quinn dislikes “ _more like baewatch am i right?_ ”

 **norris 🏆**  
_:(_  
_dont dislike my jokes_  
_but seriously_  
_it looks good_  
_you look hot_  
_call me later if ur bored_  😜

 **quinn**  
_i will not be calling later_  
_thanks tho_  
_ur a real one_

Matthew does a double-take when Quinn comes downstairs, but doesn’t say a single thing, which Quinn is grateful for. Matthew is practically her older brother.

But Johnny doesn’t hold back.

“Okay, _legs_ ,” she says looking Quinn up and down. She’s smiling and Quinn knows she’s teasing, but it helps. It takes the edge off everything she’s been feeling.

Brady doesn’t say anything when Quinn joins him out by the pool, and she can’t quite hide her disappointment. It’s not that she’d _wanted_ him to say anything, but… she’d hoped he would.

She’d hoped that, maybe, possibly, he’d…

But he didn’t.

That was fine.

And if she spends a little extra time putting her sunscreen on, while stretched out on the lounger next to Brady’s just to feel his eyes on her? That’s her business.

—

They’d kissed, once, in Dallas, after the draft.

They didn’t talk about it after.

She didn’t know what Brady chalked it up to, if it was the adrenaline from being _drafted_ , or the vodka they’d snuck into one of the rooms.

Quinn knew what it was for her.

She didn’t like to think about it.

She didn’t like to think about how he’d insisted on following her back to her room.

She didn’t like to think about the way Brady had collapsed onto her bed, or how Quinn had crawled onto the mattress after him, or how she’d straddled his hips, instead of curling up next to him.

She didn’t like to think about the way his hands had curled around her hips, or how his voice had sounded, soft and rough and overwhelmed when he’d said “Quinn?”

She didn’t like to think about how his hands had felt in her hair when she’d finally kissed him.

Because it _had_ been her.

She’d been the one to close the gap between them, the one to fall down onto her elbows so she could get her mouth on his.

She would’ve fucked him, that night. There’s no question in her mind that she would’ve fucked him.

She’d wanted it so badly that she couldn’t keep herself from grinding down on him, from licking into his mouth when she’d felt him getting hard against her.

But he’d passed out with his hands up her shirt and her lips on his neck.

They didn’t talk about it the next morning.

Or the next morning.

Or any morning after that.

And after that, things were different.

She didn’t know if he remembered it, but he’d held her at an arm’s length after that. He didn’t tell her his secrets anymore, and by the time she’d seen him again, she felt like she didn’t know him anymore at all.

—

It rains that afternoon. Brady and Quinn pile up on one of the couches and fire up the Xbox.

“Fortnite?” Brady asks, tossing a controller to Quinn.

“Duh,” she says. She watches as Brady turns the volume up, almost a little too high.

“Afraid you’re not gonna hear the thirteen year olds chirping you?”

“More like I’m afraid of what I’m going to hear from upstairs,” he mumbles.

Quinn quirks an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t ask.

“Wanna put something on?” he asks, eyeing her swimsuit as they wait for the game to load. The air conditioning is _blasting_.

She shivers. “Well, now I’m scared to go up to my room,” she says.

“Here,” Brady says, throwing a blanket at her from the back of the chaise next to him.

Quinn wraps herself up in it, tucking her feet under herself.

They take turns playing for an hour or two before taking a break for snacks.

“How’s Hailee?” Quinn asks around a mouthful of salsa. Brady frowns.

Hailee was Brady’s Ottawa girlfriend. Blonde. Thin. Pretty. Quinn had never met her, but they’d followed each other on Instagram. Quinn didn’t want to say she was keeping tabs, but… Brady didn’t tell her his secrets anymore. She had to find out about them somehow.

“We broke up,” he says, finally.

Quinn raises her eyebrows, feeling surprised. “What? When?”

“At the end of the season,” he says.

“Shit. I’m sorry.” That was months ago. He hadn’t said anything. She tries not to feel hurt.

Brady shrugs. “It’s fine. She’s going back to Montreal to finish school and it just, wasn’t working out, you know?”

“Still sucks,” she says, nudging his leg with her foot.

He frowns harder. “How’s Josh?”

“What?” she asks, feeling like she was missing something. “Don’t you talk like, every week?”

Brady levels a glare at her. “You know what I’m talking about.”

She squints at him. “Do I?”

He sighs, pushing a bag of chips away from himself. “When were you going to tell me you guys were like, a thing?”

Quinn’s stomach drops.

“What.”

Brady pulls his phone out, thumbing it open, flipping through tabs like he’s looking for something, anything.

“Who told you that?” she asks.

“Does it matter?” he asks, looking up at her. “Point is, _you_ didn’t.”

He’s right, is the thing. They used to tell each other everything, every thought, every dream, every secret.

(Like one night, when they were sixteen. She’d been half asleep, reading _A Doll’s House_ for class, when Brady had barged into her room. He’d been out of breath and had flung himself down on her bed and said, “Guess who lost their virginity tonight?”

She’d sat up in bed and said, “Gonna tell me about it?”

He’d smiled and said, “Everything and anything, baby.”)

(Or the night Quinn had hooked up with a guy they knew from Pi High. She and a couple of the guys had gone to a party without Brady for once. She’d had a couple of drinks and danced and been a relatively normal teenager. When he’d asked her to go upstairs, she’d agreed.

It’d been the most underwhelming fingering she’d ever experienced.

Brady was still awake when she got home. It was easy to flop down next to him on the couch and say, “Guess who got fingered tonight.”

“Seriously?” he’d said, smiling spreading across his face. “Tell me everything.”

“Not much to tell,” she’d said.

“That bad, huh?”

She’d shrugged.

“Chem is gonna be so awkward now.”

“Not your lab partner,” he’d crowed, before pulling her in tight and urging her to tell him everything that happened, start to finish.)

But she hadn’t told him this.

She hadn’t told him how, at the start of their sophomore year, Quinn had been feeling raw and lonely and a little homesick.

She hadn’t told him that she’d crawled into bed with Josh one night, sliding under his questionably clean sheets in his dorm room, for a cuddle and some comfort.

She hadn’t told him that when she kissed Josh, he’d kissed her back.

She hadn’t told him what it’d felt like when Josh had slid down her body and licked her open, how his fingers had felt inside her, how hard she’d shaken when she’d come.

She hadn’t told him how it felt when he pushed inside of her or how she’d felt overheated when he’d said her name, a sigh more than anything else.

She hadn’t told him that they’d done it again and again and again.

There were a lot of things she hadn’t told him. It was habit now.

“Didn’t think you’d care,” she says, finally.

When she looks up at him, he looks hurt.

“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I do.”

“It wasn’t like, a thing, if that makes you feel any better.”

Brady gives her a look like he doesn’t believe her.

“It wasn’t!” she insists. “We’re not like, in love. We aren’t dating.”

Brady’s face scrunches up even more. “So you just fuck all your friends?”

Quinn sits up straight. “Is it a problem if I do?”

Brady deflates. “No. Sorry, no, it’s not. You _know_ it’s not. I didn’t mean—I just…”

He trails off.

“We used to tell each other everything and now I feel like I’ve missed out on a big part of your life.”

Quinn shrugs. “You kind of did.”

“When did things get so weird?” he asks, looking down at his hands.

 _Dallas_ , Quinn’s mind supplies. “Dunno,” she says, shrugging. “But we can fix it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, settling back into the couch cushions. It’s raining harder now, showing no signs of letting up. “Tell me everything about your first season.”

“Okay,” Brady says, soft smile blooming across his face. “I can do that.”

—

She calls Josh that night.

“So Brady knows,” she says as soon as he answers.

“Well, hello,” he says, just to be an asshole.

“Hello,” she replies. “Brady knows.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What do you mean that you know?”

“I told him.”

Quinn’s heart stops.

She inhales. Exhales. Inhales— “I’m, _sorry_?”

“He needed to know, Q.”

“And you get to decide that?”

Josh sighs. “He’s my friend too, Quinn. I was there too, you know. It’s not just _your_ secret.”

“So you just fuck and tell, now?”

“Oh, come _on_. As if you and Brady haven’t always fucked and told. When’s the last time you _didn’t_ tell him about a hookup of yours?”

“Last year, after we kissed at the draft.”

Josh is so quiet on the other end that Quinn thinks for a moment that she’s lost him.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she mumbles.

“Is this why you were so depressy at the beginning of the semester?”

“Don’t say ‘depressy’—”

“Because you were fucked up over _Brady_? Like, I knew you were into him but, Q. This is _sad_.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she says, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I can’t believe I was your rebound. I, the objectively hotter friend, was your rebound.”

“You love it.”

“I do love it, actually, yeah.” She can hear how smug he sounds. She kind of, unfortunately, likes it.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asks.

“About what?”

Josh exhales hard, annoyed. “About _Brady_.”

“Nothing?”

Josh sucks his teeth. “Yeah, don’t know about that one. Think maybe you should try for it.”

“Like, how? I already threw myself at him once and that did not go well.”

“Threw yourself—you’re really going to have to tell me the full story one day. In the meantime, I don’t know, maybe talk to him? Tell him how you feel.”

Quinn makes a retching noise. “No way.”

Josh sighs. “You wanna know why I told him, Quinn?” She hums. “Because I was hoping he’d finally do something.”

Quinn stops breathing. “Finally?”

“Come on, Q. You’ve got eyes. I know you see what I see.” Quinn’s heart is beating very fast now.

“Think about it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, feeling winded.

“Call me when it’s over,” he says before hanging up.

—

That night, Quinn dreams about Ann Arbor and nights spent sprawled out on couches and floors and beds, listening to Brady talk and talk and talk. She dreams about soft hands and soft lips and soft curls slipping between her fingers.

When she wakes up, she’s wet and she feels almost guilty for jerking off in Taryn’s bed. Almost.

Johnny and Matthew are gone when she finally goes downstairs. It’s just her and Brady.

“All day?” she asks.

“They went whale watching.”

“ _Whale watching_?” She leans over the island, hands spread out over the granite.

“I _know_ ,” Brady says, face splitting from how amused he is.

“What are we going to do?” she asks, sitting back onto the barstool more fully.

Brady thinks for a moment, finishing his toast, tossing a piece of crust back onto the plate.

“Golf?”

“Golf.”

—

Matthew and Johnny had taken the car with them, effectively stranding Brady and Quinn—sort of.

Once they’ve gotten dressed, Brady leads Quinn out to the garage, where he shows her a golf cart that’s seen better days.

“Club’s just right up the street,” he says, loading two golf bags into the back. He opens the garage door, before hopping into the driver’s seat. The golf cart groans when he turns the key, but ultimately starts. “You trust me?”

Quinn smirks, before slumping into the passenger seat. “Always, but I’m not sure why.”

It’s still early when they get to the golf course, which, as Brady promised, was just up the street.

Given that it’s a Friday morning, they’re the youngest people on the green.

It’s nice, though. Just the two of them.

Quinn isn’t much of a golfer, but she’s competitive, so she gives it her all and is otherwise content to sit in the golf cart filming Brady. She sends clips to Josh and some other NTDP guys and posts a particularly good swing to her insta story.

“Aw, thanks, babe,” Brady says when he sees it. “You’re a good Instagram husband.”

Quinn’s heart pounds in her chest. “Yeah, whatever. Just had to catch your good side.”

“The side where you can see my ass and not my face?”

“Exactly,” she says, smiling, before throwing her feet up on the dash of the golf cart.

“Dick,” he says, before starting the cart back up.

—

Later, they walk further down the street to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Brady’s gone to every summer since he was five.

“Best fried oysters in the Cape.”

“Bold claim,” Quinn says as they walk down the road. Their hands are swinging between them and she can’t help but think about how easy it would be to reach out and grab his.

“I swear,” Brady says, smile approximately a mile wide.

The oysters  _are_ good. As is the beer the owner, Anne, lets them buy.

“I’ve known this one since he was about this high,” Anne says, pointing to her hip. “All grown up now and bringing girls around. Makes me feel old.”

Brady laughs, cheeks flushing minutely. Quinn’s heart races.

“You keep him in line,” Anne tells Quinn, giving her a wink.

“I’ll try,” Quinn says and Brady smiles impossibly wider.

—

Brady wasn’t there the night Quinn had sex for the first time. He was seven hundred miles away, asleep in his dorm in Boston, probably.

She still called.

“You should be asleep,” she said when he answered.

“How can I be asleep when you’re calling me?” he asked.

She’d smiled and hoped he could tell, that somehow he could hear it down the line.

“I had sex tonight.”

“No fucking _way_ ,” he’d said, sounding infinitely more awake now.

“Yeah,” she’d sighed.

“And? How was it?”

“It was fine.”

“Fine?” he asked, sounding disappointed. For her, she guessed.

“Did he…” he trailed off, like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask or how to ask it.

“It didn’t like…” she said, hoping he understood. It didn’t hurt. It was just...

“It was weirder than I thought it would be,” she admitted, finally. “Like, I wanted to. And I liked it. But it was…”

“Awkward,” he offered.

“ _Yes_. Like I’ve hooked up before. Dudes have seen me naked before—”

“I’ve basically seen you naked before.”

“Right! But, I don’t know. It wasn’t what I expected.”

Brady hummed. “You got off, right?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.”

“Good,” he said, sighing. “That’s my girl. Otherwise I’d have to come out there and kick his ass, whoever he is.”

Quinn had smiled. “Don’t worry, Chucky. I got mine.”

“You glad it’s over?”

Quinn had thought for a moment. She hadn’t been saving herself. Not even close. She’d hooked up enough that she hadn’t really considered herself a virgin anymore, not really. She just hadn’t fully sealed the deal—until tonight.

It was fine. It was over. She had just… felt like something was missing.

“Yeah,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “On to better things.”

“On to better sex,” Brady said.

“Exactly.”

“Wish I was there,” he admitted after a few moments of silence.

“Wish you were too,” she said. “Miss you.”

“Miss you always,” he said, and she believed him.

—

Johnny and Matthew are curled up on the couch when she and Brady get back to the house.

It’s weird, kind of. Quinn’s known Matthew since she was fifteen years old, which okay, isn’t a _long_ time. Just over four years. But Matthew’s always been her dorky older brother who has absolutely _no_ game. She’s seen him strike out with girls more times than she can count. Not to mention that she’s never seen him be serious about _anyone_.

But here he is with Johnny, looking content and relaxed and so in love. She almost doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s _disgusting_.

They barely look up from the TV when she and Brady walk in, and they definitely don’t move at all. Matthew stays put, body stretched out across the couch with his head in Johnny’s lap.

“Hey,” Matthew says, nodding in their direction. Johnny’s hands are buried in his hair, dragging patterns across his scalp. It looks like a tumbleweed.

“Have fun _whale watching_?” Brady asks, and Quinn can tell he’s trying to hold back his smirk.

“Yeah, actually. It was pretty cool,” Johnny says. “What did you kids get up to while we were gone?”

There’s a tone to her question, even though she’s smiling warmly. Quinn doesn’t like it. She squints her eyes.

“Just golfing,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Very nice,” Matthew says, cutting his eyes over to them. “Now get lost.”

Johnny laughs, this soft, fond thing. She mumbles something to Matthew, who frowns, before saying, “You can stay if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. We’ll go,” Brady says before dragging Quinn upstairs by the arm.

—

Brady doesn’t have a TV in his room.

“Matthew does,” he says, frowning.

“Older sibling privilege,” Quinn says, knowing it’ll bug Brady.

“ _Whatever_ ,” he says, shoving her at the top of the stairs. “Go change and meet me in my parents’ room.”

Quinn slips out of her denim shorts and into a pair of threadbare NTDP sweats that have seen better days. It’s not until she pulls her Michigan shirt out of her bag that she realizes it’s not hers. It’s Josh’s. She pulls it on anyway.

Brady’s on the bed when she pokes her head around the door.

“ _Peaky Blinders_?” he asks, not looking away from the TV.

Quinn shakes her head, crawling up on the bed. “No. _Sabrina_?”

He crinkles his nose. “ _New Girl_?”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, settling back against the pillows.

Brady’s a long, solid line of heat all down her side. She hasn’t touched him in so long, not like this. But she wants to. She wants to lean against him, like she used to, back on the Tkachuk couch in Ann Arbor or in St. Louis. She wants to know if it’d be welcome, now, when things are so different.

She stays put on her side of the bed.

They only make it through a couple of episodes before Quinn starts nodding off.

“Falling asleep, Quinny?”

She hums, eyes closed. Brady’s hand is gentle when he touches her cheek, fingers brushing her hair back behind her ear.

“We can stay here, if you want?”

Quinn hums again, and between one breath and the next, she’s asleep.

—

The room is bright when Quinn wakes up and she’s sweating.

She blinks sleepily at the wall in front of her, slowly processing what she’s seeing. There’s a dresser, topped with a vase full of silk flowers, along with a few framed photos. She can see Brady and Matthew and Taryn, all at various ages, in varying amounts of white. They’re on the beach in every single photo. So they’re one of _those_ families.

Brady’s still asleep behind her. His breathing is even, his arm a warm, solid weight across her waist.

He’s hard.

He’s  _very_ hard and pressed against the swell of Quinn’s ass.

She’s not breathing, not moving, not doing anything that could wake Brady. She’s caught—pinned down by the weight of Brady’s arm and the weight of the knowledge she’s now in possession of.

When Brady wakes up a few minutes later, he tightens his arm around Quinn’s waist before rubbing his face softly against the back of Quinn’s neck. She feels it when he inhales, breathing in against her hair. She hopes to God that she’s not blushing.

Quinn tries to keep her breath slow and steady, lest she give herself away. Brady shifts back slowly, until only his hand rests on Quinn’s waist.

“Quinny?” he whispers. “You awake?”

Quinn hums softly, stretching under the sheets, before turning over slowly. “Am now.”

Brady’s face is soft and Quinn wants to touch him so bad.

“Are you wearing Josh’s shirt?” His face is a careful mask. Quinn knows he wants her to think he’s unbothered. Quinn also knows better.

“Used to wear your shirts when we lived together.”

Brady frowns. “That was different.”

“It wasn’t,” she says, holding his gaze. His expression shifts.

“Quinn—” Brady starts, hand inching closer across the duvet.

“I’m gonna go shower,” she says, before flinging the sheets back and walking out of the room. Her heart is pounding by the time she closes the bathroom door behind her.

—

“He’s out back,” Matthew says when she finally comes downstairs. She’d taken an outrageously long shower, before actually taking time to do something with her hair. She’d even _called_ her mother to check in. After an hour and a half of hiding, her stomach won out.

Matthew’s flipping pancakes in the kitchen and Quinn can’t hide her surprise.

“Don’t get too excited,” he says. “They’re gluten-free, dairy-free, protein pancakes.” She frowns. “And it’s one of like four things I know how to make now.”

“Still more than me,” she says, grabbing a plate and loading up on pre-cut fruit Matthew and Johnny had clearly bought for the sole purpose of being lazy.

They eat side by side at the counter, the three of them finishing in under ten minutes like the disgusting athletes they are, barely chewing their food with how quickly they’re eating it.

After, Quinn makes a plate and takes it out to Brady where he’s sitting on the patio.

“Hey,” she says, plopping down on the couch beside him. “Room for two in your pity party?”

“Haha,” Brady says, grabbing for the plate, before looking up at her. “Wanna go to the beach later?”

Quinn looks up at the sky. It’s overcast, with dark clouds threatening on the horizon. It’s a little chilly for June, all things considered. She’d been promised _sun_ and _sand_.

“Just for a walk,” Brady says around a mouthful of pancakes and strawberries.

“Yeah, okay, I can do that.”

—

The beach isn’t far from the house, but they have to drive.

“Kind of defeats the purpose of having a beach house, huh?” Quinn asks just to be a brat.

Brady shrugs. “My parents bought it because it’s close to the golf course, and it’s kind of remote. It’s their retirement plan.”

“Your dad already retired.”

Brady rolls his eyes. “For when he retires for real. He’s still working.”

“Right,” she says, before propping her feet up against the dashboard.

The beach is nice, for a North Atlantic beach. Quinn grew up going to the Gulf. She was spoiled by white sand beaches and clear, warm water.

“I’ll drive an hour further than I have to if it means I can avoid the Atlantic,” her mother had once said.

So, Quinn grew up snobby about her beaches. Florida privilege, and all that.

But this beach, all things considered, was nice. The sand was soft and clean. She imagined that the water would be a nice, deep blue on a pretty day, but today it was a deep grey color. It was going to rain, she was sure of it.

“How often do you come here?” she asks once she and Brady have kicked their sandals off.

“Not much,” he says, kicking at a small piece of driftwood. “We used to spend at least a month here every summer when we were small. It was fun. Just a revolving door of family and friends. My grandma would bake these pies, you know? Fresh picked blueberries with homemade ice cream.”

“That sounds nice,” Quinn says, bumping against Brady.

“We’d do clambakes in the backyard and Matthew and I would beat the shit out of each other for the last slice of pie.”

“That sounds more like it,” she says, laughing because she can imagine it.

(They hadn’t gotten long breaks in the NTDP. Quinn hadn’t been able to make it home for the holidays during her first year, so she’d spent them with the Tkachuks. Chantal and Taryn had come up from St. Louis and Matthew had come down from London and they’d tried to make her feel included.

She didn’t have Christmas traditions of her own, being Jewish, but she knew what parts of the holiday she liked. She made cookies with Chantal and Taryn and watched _Elf_ with Matthew and Brady and on Christmas Eve when Chantal had handed each of her kids a present, she’d given Quinn one too.

“It’s a tradition,” she’d explained, watching as Quinn had carefully unwrapped the package. Inside, was a pair of pajamas. “I hope you like them,” she said.

“We wear them all day on Christmas,” Brady explained.

“Until dinner,” Chantal added. “We dress up at dinner.”

“Unfortunately,” Matthew said, shaking out his new pajama pants. They had reindeer on them.

Later, she’d watched contentedly as Matthew put Brady in a headlock over the last Christmas cookie.)

“Jack getting excited for the draft?” Brady asks later, when they’re sitting in the sand, watching the waves crash.

“I think so. She’s nervous, obviously.” Quinn runs a hand through her hair. “It’s a big deal, you know? Even if she goes second—”

“She’ll go first.”

“ _Even_ if she goes second. It’ll still be incredible. An American-born player going that high is always incredible, but—”

“But she’s a girl. Yeah, I know, Quinny.” He leans against her, shoulders pressing together. “She’ll go first overall and she’ll be the first, like she’s supposed to be.”

“Like she’s meant to be,” Quinn says, soft smile spreading across her face.

“How do you feel? That’s your baby sister becoming the first American-born woman to be picked first overall.”

Quinn exhales. “Nervous? Scared, honestly.” Her eyes feel hot. “What if—” she trails off.

“I know.”

“What if they fuck her up?”

“I know, Quinny.”

“The media can just be _so_ —and the fans?”

“I know.” He puts his arm around her now, pulling her in close. They’d grown up in the era of Crosby, Backstrom, and Seguin, seeing women at the forefront of their sport. They’d seen the shit they’d had to put up with. They’d seen the shit their _peers_ had to put up with. Connor got it hard now, taking all the blame for the failure of the Oilers, but Jack got it too—and differently. People largely overlooked Connor’s personal life, but Jack’s was never off limits.

“But she’s got you,” Brady says. “And she’s got us, too. We’ll look out for her.”

Quinn nods. That was true. Jack was going to have an amazing support system.

“Hall’s been playing with women for years, and I know he’ll have her back. Not to mention that Jack will have Nico, so she won’t be alone. They’ll have each other.”

“You’re right,” she says, exhaling shakily.

“Once in a blue moon, hey?”

Quinn smiles.

And because Quinn is Quinn, she sticks her foot in it.

“Do you ever think about our draft?”

Brady tenses beside her.

“Sometimes,” he says, voice barely more than a whisper.

(Quinn thinks about it more than sometimes. She remembers watching Brady get drafted, clapping and cheering with her family. She remembers blacking out when they’d called her name. She remembers the way Brady’s arms had felt when they’d wrapped around her minutes or hours or days later, when he’d found her backstage signing hats and pucks.

“That’s not Tkachuckle is it?” she’d asked, flushing hard from the feeling of his weight pressing fully against her back. He’d patted her hip a few times, speaking excitedly directly into her neck and she’d prayed that the cameras couldn’t pick up on how overwhelmed she was feeling in the moment.)

“I think about it all the time,” she admits, looking up at him.

He’s watching her, a surprised expression settling on his face.

“Why didn’t we talk about it?” she asks, and she’s surprised by how shaky her own voice is.

“Quinn—”

“We just, pretended it never happened and then we stopped talking. Why did we stop talking?”

Brady pulls away, which feels wrong. Quinn watches as he runs a hand through his hair, his hands coming down to settle over his face.

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging. Quinn knows he’s not being flippant. He really doesn’t know.

“I think, maybe, I didn’t know how to talk about it? And then the longer we went without talking about it, the easier it was to just, not talk?”

Quinn nods. That made sense.

“We got busy,” she offers.

“We did.” He sighs. “But I’m never too busy for you, Quinn. Never.”

She flushes at that confession. She feels… pleased. This deep down satisfaction that ebbs through her at knowing that when pressed, he’d still put her first.

“Yeah?”

“Promise.” Brady nods, earnestness written all over his face. “I don’t wanna mess this up—”

“It wasn’t just you—”

“—so I’m gonna do my best, okay? I’m going to be the person you want to tell all your secrets to. Again.”

Quinn looks at the ocean, scared of what’ll happen if she looks at Brady. She takes one breath, then two. Exhales.

“Wanna know a secret?”

“Always,” he says, sounding breathless.

“Good,” she says, before standing. “Gonna have to wait until later.”

He watches as she dusts the sand off her shorts, dumbfounded look set on his face.

“Let’s head back,” she says, not waiting for him to stand up before heading off in the direction they’d come.

Brady jogs to catch up with her, walking quietly beside her all the way back to the entrance to the beach.

It starts to rain as soon as they reach the steps up onto the walkway. Quinn takes one look at Brady, who’s smiling back at her.

“Race you back to the car,” she says before taking off.

She can hear Brady laughing behind her. “I _have_ the keys!”

He catches up to her a moment or two after she gets to the car. She’s soaking through at a rapid pace, hair hanging limp and wet down her back. Brady’s not doing much better, water streaming across his forehead, his curls all weighed down.

They jump inside as soon as the doors are unlocked, slumping down into the seats and listening to the heavy raindrops hitting the canvas of the roof.

“Good thing we put the top up,” Brady says, voice loud in the quiet of the car.

His cheeks are flushed and his shirt is clinging to him and Quinn knows it would be easy, it would be so _easy_ to swing her legs over the center console and just get up _on_ him.

She wants that. She wants to feel his hands on her waist again, to feel the warm brush of his mouth.

Brady starts the car.

“Yeah, good thing,” she says, feeling out of breath and caught.

—

They didn’t talk about the kiss.

It’s a thought that hits her as she helps Johnny with the salad. She can see Matthew and Brady on the patio, grilling steaks while watching it rain.

“You guys have fun today?” Johnny asks.

Quinn hums. “Yeah, it’s been nice.”

“You working things out?” Johnny raises a brow knowingly.

“Unclear,” she says, shrugging.

“We’ll be friends, for sure,” she clarifies, when she sees Johnny’s confused expression. “But…”

“Got it,” Johnny says, turning to look at Quinn. “Something happened right? Matthew mentioned he thought something had happened, but he wasn’t sure. Just that you and Brady have always been tight and now… not so much.”

Quinn nods. “Yeah, something happened. It’s hard to talk about?”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, if you don’t want.”

“No, I—” Quinn fiddles with the cucumber she’d been slicing. “It’s hard to talk about it with _Brady_. It’s like he doesn’t want to.”

Johnny hums.

“So you make him.”

Quinn crinkles her nose. “Isn’t that like, kinda fucked up?”

“I’m not saying hold him at knife point. But, look, he’s probably just freaked out. Feelings are _hard_.” Johnny pulls herself up onto the counter, feet swinging. “Look, when Matthew and I started our  _thing_ , it was just buddies, right? And then it was _more_ than buddies and I didn’t want to admit it. I took a really long time to figure it out and almost fucked it up because I didn’t want to be vulnerable.”

Quinn gets that. Quinn absolutely gets that.

“So, yeah, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Okay, so you talk. Tell him what _you_ feel. Get him to hear you out, you know?”

“I can do that,” Quinn says, nodding.

“Yeah, you can,” Johnny says, clapping her on the back.

—

Quinn’s never crawled into bed with Brady before.

It’s always been the other way around. Brady’d climbed into her bed at the Tkachuk house in Ann Arbor and in St. Louis. He’d climbed into hotel beds with her and sprawled close to her on palettes they’d made on the floor at friend’s homes.

But she’d never done it. She’d never felt the need to, until now.

It’s just after two in the morning when she slips out of bed, out of her room and down the hall. Brady’s door is unlocked when she gets to it. She takes a breath before opening the door and walking in. Brady’s asleep. It’s hard to tell because the room is dimly lit, but she’s heard him sleeping enough times in the past four years to know what it sounds like. The door clicks quietly behind her and she leans against it for a moment, steeling herself.

“Brady?” she whispers when she finally crosses the room and climbs onto the bed.

He doesn’t respond.

“Brady?” she tries again when she slips under the covers and into the space beside him.

He doesn’t stir. Quinn doesn’t want to shake him awake, but she can’t resist the urge to touch him. His face is relaxed in his sleep, and it’s easy to run her fingers over his cheekbones and down to his jaw.

Brady hums in his sleep, face scrunching up for a moment before relaxing again. His eyes blink open slowly.

She watches as he takes her in, watches as he realizes that she’s actually there, in his bed

“Quinny?”

When she brushes her fingers across his jaw this time, she feels him shiver.

“Quinn, what are you—”

“I kissed you,” she says.

Brady’s lips part. Quinn rubs her thumb across them.

“I kissed you at the draft, Brady. You kissed me back.”

“Yes,” he rasps out.

“And then we never talked about it. I woke up alone, and we never talked about it.” She feels his breath ghosting over her thumb where it’s still resting against his chin. “Why did you leave?”

Brady squeezes his eyes shut. “I wanted to stay. That morning—god. You looked so good that morning and I—” He shakes his head. “I knew I was leaving, Quinn. I knew I was going into the NHL, and I thought—I _hoped_ you were too. I didn’t want you to get stuck with me.”

“I want to be stuck with you, though,” she admits.

“ _Jesus_ , Quinn.” His lips brush against her thumb. She wishes he would kiss it. “I thought, when you didn’t bring it up, that maybe you’d forgotten.”

“I wasn’t _that_ drunk,” Quinn says, rolling her eyes.

“I know, but. It would’ve been easier that way. If you’d forgotten.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Me neither.”

“I want to do it again,” she says, dragging her thumb down Brady’s jaw, resting it behind his ear.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, a moment before closing the distance between them and kissing him.

It’s different, this time.

When they’d kissed a year ago, it’d tasted like vodka and soda and Quinn’s lipgloss she’d worn for the draft. Their movements had been slow and syrupy, limbs weighed down with alcohol and their adrenaline crash.

This time it tastes like toothpaste and sleep and Brady’s skin is so _warm_ under her hands and everything is moving so _fast_.

Brady pulls her on top of him, hands clinging to her hips as he leans up to kiss her, tongue slipping between her lips to press against hers.

“Fuck, Quinn,” he says when she pulls away to kiss a line down his jaw, pausing to suck at the space behind his ear.

“You can, if you want,” she says, cringing at her own awful line.

“I should chirp you for that, but I’ll let it slide,” he says, before kissing her, dragging her in close and wrapping his arms around her. He runs his hands up her thighs, thumbing at the crease where her legs meet her hips.

“Wanna eat you out,” he mumbles against her lips. She kisses him again, hard, and hopeful that he can feel everything she can’t say.

“ _Fuck_ , yeah. I want that too,” she says when she pulls back, forehead pressed against his.

Quinn goes easily when he tips her onto her back. She sighs when he pushes her shirt up and off, soft noises tumbling out of her mouth without her permission when he gets his mouth on her, sucking on one nipple before kissing the other. When he looks up, Quinn feels trapped. She watches, helpless, as he presses kisses down her abdomen, stopping at the waistband of her shorts.

“Yes?” he asks, flush high on his cheeks.

“Are you fucking joking? _Yes_.”

He pulls her shorts off with her underwear, tossing them over his shoulder, before smirking at her and nudging her thighs further apart

She’s wet when he rubs his thumb over her, spreading the slick between her folds and up to her clit. Quinn moans softly, this small, humming thing. She can feel her thighs starting to shake. She’s so overwhelmed and he hasn’t even done anything yet. Not really.

Brady goes slow at first, rubbing at her clit while he licks over her with long strokes.

“More?” he asks, when she starts to squirm, hips moving in tight little circles. He pulls away to kiss up her thigh. She wants him to bite, to suck, to leave a mark. She knows everyone would see. She kind of doesn’t give a shit.

Quinn sighs, yanking on his hair and pulling him back to where she wants him. He smirks against her, she can feel it which is just _something_ , before he wraps his mouth around her clit and sucks.

She gets lost in the sensation, in the feeling of Brady’s mouth on her and his hands wrapped around her thighs and his hair between her fingers.

She’d known, abstractly, that it would be like this. They’d talked about sex a lot over the years. About what they liked and what they didn’t like. She knew he liked this. He’d told her he liked this all the way back in their first year in the program

(Brady had gotten home late that night. If Keith had been at the house, he for sure would’ve chewed Brady out, but he had gotten lucky.

“Where’ve you been?” Quinn asked, barely looking up from her math homework.

“Hanging out with Hannah.”

“Hannah from English or Hannah from Chem?”

“Hannah from English.”

“Didn’t think she was into you,” Quinn said, clearing a formula from her calculator.

“ _See_ , that’s what I thought too, but when I asked her to get ice cream, she said ‘yeah’. Anyway, wanna know what we did?”

“You got ice cream. You just said that.” The problem she was working on was really pissing her off. She fucking hated math.

“Yeah, and then we went back to her place and she sat on my face.”

Quinn put her pencil down gently before turning in her chair to face him. His lip was caught between his teeth and he _knew_ he had her attention.

“ _Excuse me_?”

“Okay, so not _really_ , but I did go down on her.”

“And?” She knew it was like, number one of Brady’s sex bucket list. He desperately wanted to go down on a girl.

“And it was _amazing_. Or like, I don’t know if it was amazing for her. She got off, but like. Holy _shit_.”

“That good, huh?”

He nodded, looking starstruck. “Can’t wait to do it again. I could do it all day.”

“Not if you plan to make the NHL, you can’t.”

He’d kicked at her under the table then, before pulling her into a headlock, laughing the whole time.)

Quinn’s embarrassingly close, like way closer than she’d anticipated. She’s flushed and sweating behind her knees and overwhelmed, but manages to stutter out, “Fingers” somehow.

Brady gets two fingers into her, thrusting them shallowly while crooking them. She can’t help but clench down around them and moan softly.

When she comes, her fingernails dig into Brady’s scalp and her thighs clamp around his head and _fuck_ she could die like this, she really could.

“Good?” he asks, kissing up her body and coming up to rest beside her, one leg still pressed between hers, arm draped across her waist, his face tucked into her neck.

“Oh, fuck off,” she says, pushing at his face. “You know you’re good at that.”

“Yeah,” he admits, propping himself up so he can smirk down at her. “I’m not cute, you know, so I had to pick up some skills along the way. Never had any complaints.”

“I think you’re cute,” she whispers, reaching up to thumb across his nearly invisible eyebrow and down along his cheekbone.

Brady scoffs. “Yeah, okay.”

Quinn blinks up at him, before furrowing her brows. “I’m serious. I meant what I said before, Chucky. I want to get stuck with you.”

“Yeah?” he asks, looking weirdly shy.

“Yeah, dumbass.”

Quinn can’t help but love the smile that spreads across his face.

“Cool,” he says, leaning forward to kiss her, just a soft press of lips. “Same. Like, obviously.”

“Obviously,” she repeats, smiling harder than she has in a long time.

“Can I fuck you now?” she asks, sitting up.

Brady nods, scrambling back across the bed and watching as Quinn slides, naked, across the sheets and into his lap.

“Like this okay?” she asks, shivering when she feels the fabric of his shorts against her where she’s wet and so, so sensitive.

Brady looks like he couldn’t string a sentence together right now if he tried. He stares as Quinn strips him of his t-shirt, and as she pulls his shorts down.

His dick is huge.

That’s her first thought upon getting him naked. She’d had her suspicions over the years, but seeing it and having her suspicions confirmed? That was something she wasn’t entirely prepared for.

Her second thought is that she needs that in her like, right now.

“You get this hard from eating me out?” she asks, wrapping her hand around him. He’s proportionally long and _thick_ and flushed so red.

“Well, I mean, yeah, _obviously_ ,” he says, eyes slipping shut as she jerks him off.

“Obviously,” she parrots, before straddling him again, rubbing the head of his cock against her

“Wait,” he says, breathing heavy, one big hand wrapped around her hip to stop her from sinking down onto him.

“What?”

“I don’t have any condoms with me.”

Which. _Fuck_.

“Ask your brother?”

Brady laughs. “Yeah I’m gonna wake Matthew up at,” he turns his head, squinting at the ancient alarm clock on his nightstand, “2:37am to ask for a _condom_.”

“Okay, I’ll go,” she says, making like she’s about to swing her leg over Brady’s body so she can get off the bed.

“Wait, wait, wait. We can do other things, right? I can go down on you again, we can—”

Quinn shakes her head. “Nope, no way. I want that,” she points at his erection where it’s resting against his abdomen, “inside me. I’ve waited _so_ long.”

Brady looks stunned and smug for a moment. “ _Really_?”

She thinks for a moment. This is stupid, what she’s about to do. Like, monumentally stupid.

“Are you clean?”

Brady squints up at her. “Yes?”

“Okay,” she says, taking his dick in hand once more. She rubs him against her again, once, twice.

“I’m on the pill,” she says, looking at him from under her lashes, “Okay?”

She sees it the moment it clicks for Brady, what she’s suggesting. What she’s asking for.

“Yeah,” he says, exhaling _hard_ , his fingers biting into her hips.

Quinn sinks down slowly, sighing when she’s fully seated. She can’t help but clench down around him, pleasure zipping up her spine.

“Okay?” he asks.

Quinn feels completely fucking flayed.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re just, you know,” she gestures, “a big boy.”

Brady knows he has a big dick. He _has_ to. He still looks proud, like he had a hand in this. As if he wasn’t just _blessed_ by genetics. Asshole.

“Okay, okay, I’m good,” Quinn says, more to herself than Brady.

She works them into a slow, steady rhythm, kissing him all the while. It feels so fucking good and she’s sighing and tipping her head forward when she gets the angle just right.

Brady takes Quinn by surprise when he flips them.

One moment, Quinn is working herself on him, thighs shaking from the effort, the next Brady is pushing one of Quinn’s legs up and out, before slipping back into her.

She keens, this high, punched out sound that she feels embarrassed by, but she couldn’t stop herself from making it if she even tried.

“That was a real nice show, Quinny,” Brady says, pulling almost all the way out, “but let me take it from here."

“Just shut up and fuck me,” she says, scratching her nails roughly down his back, before he thrusts back in.

He goes faster than her, sliding into her with long, hard strokes that have her moaning, head thrown back, back arching.

“Shh, gotta be quiet,” Brady says, leaning forward to kiss Quinn, swallowing up her sounds, as he gets a hand in between them. He rubs circles into Quinn’s clit until she’s coming, clenching around him, and shaking.

“Fuck, Quinn,” Brady groans, pulling back to bury his face in her neck. He takes her by the hips and thrusts roughly into her a few more times before coming, pulsing deep inside her.

After a moment or two, he collapses forward, breathing heavily into her shoulder, before carefully pulling out. Quinn goes easily when he rolls them over, sprawling out across his chest.

Quinn feels it, when his come starts to slip out of her. Her cheeks flush in embarrassment, both from what they’d done and from how much she’d liked it.

Brady’s eyes are closed, when she pushes up to look down at him, hands braced on either side of his head. He’s flushed and his hair is sweaty and he’s breathing hard. She’s, like, so gone on him.

She brushes his hair back from his forehead, presses a kiss to his temple, before saying, “I can’t believe you came inside me, you freak.”

“What?” he asks, face contorting as he blinks up at her. “I—you said you were on birth control.”

“Yeah, but I assumed you’d just come on me, or something,” she says, smirking.

“You’re just as bad as I am for suggesting it,” Brady says, leaning up to kiss the smirk off her face.

Quinn hums. “Probably.”

She grabs his hand where he’s rested it on her hip and guides him back, hands slipping over her ass and between her legs, where he can feel her. She knows she’s _so_ wet and she knows he’s feeling more than her slick all over her thighs. Seeing his reaction to it is just… _ugh_.

“Freak,” she says again, breathier this time. His fingers are inside her, stroking and thrusting and feeling and god she’s never going to stop thinking about this.

“You love it,” he says, sounding just as affected as she is.

“I do,” she says, nodding, before kissing him.

—

In the morning, when she wakes up, she’s pressed against Brady’s side.

“Hi,” he says, pushing her hair back from her face.

“Watching me sleep?”

“You bet.”

“Creep.”

“Oh, for sure,” he says, kissing her forehead and her cheek and finally her mouth.

“Morning breath,” she says, kissing him again.

“You too, buddy.” They’re both smiling. She can hear Matthew and Johnny in the kitchen downstairs, their soft voices and the clanging of pans.

“Round three?” he asks.

“Only if you can be quiet,” Quinn says.

“ _Oh_ , some healthy competition,” he says, sitting up to lean over her. “Okay, I’ll take that wager.”

“Winner buys the loser a gift of their choice?”

Brady smiles. “Buddy, you better be glad you signed your big girl contract. I’m gonna pick something _outrageous_.”

“Who says _you’re_ winning?” Quinn asks, before reaching up to twist Brady’s nipple. He shrieks in surprise.

“Not fair,” he pouts, pinning Quinn’s arms to the bed, before leaning down to kiss the smile off her face.

“Yeah,” Quinn says, pulling back, “but you’re stuck with me now.”

Brady’s smile could light up the room. “I am,” he says, and he kisses her then, until everything else melts away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this gifset](https://werenski.tumblr.com/post/182017712223/justiceforbradytkachuk) aka "damn :/ y'all broke up?" It just went from there.
> 
> I disappeared for like six months and reappeared to drop two fics in a week. Love that for me.
> 
> There's a second part to this fic in the works, because I'm nothing if not predictable.
> 
> Drop by my [fic twitter](https://twitter.com/honeywrites_) to chat about anything and everything!
> 
> This is part of an ongoing series I have planned, so be sure to subscribe to me.


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